Curtis Ernst, Ryan Enns, and Patrick Ernst gather around the guitar Enns inherited from his grandfather, Séamus Shillelagh McLucky O’Charms.

Most musicians in Celtic-punk outfits (outside of Ireland) can’t wait to brag about their Irish lineage—every fascinating detail, like how their great-great-grandmother used to rub elbows with Frank McCourt’s optometrist back in Limerick. Not the WhiskeyDicks. The three Yukon natives who form the core of this Vancouver-based bar band don’t seem all that fussed about what, if any, Irish blood they have kicking around in their respective family trees. And more importantly, they’re ready to explore new musical territory—which is all well and good when it comes to pursuing creative fulfillment in the studio, but as lead singer Ryan Enns explains, it’s made booking gigs for this once Pogues-indebted group a little tricky.

“In our live shows, we still play a lot of traditional Irish music,” says Enns, who, along with violinist Patrick Ernst, cellist-bassist Curtis Ernst, and fill-in drummer Yves Paradis, sat down with the Straight at a local café to talk about the band’s latest album, Get’er Done! . (More on the title later.) “But with our original songs, we do our own thing and kind of step away from that. And it’s getting to the point where we’re not Irish enough for Irish pubs, but we’re too Irish for sports bars, so we’re kind of sitting on the nether regions of Irish and non-Irish music these days.”

But there’s one venue that will probably always be happy to have them play: the Atlantic Trap & Gill. The WhiskeyDicks’ music just seems to strike a chord with all the Maritime and Newfoundland expats who frequent this East Coast home away from home. And the feeling is mutual. But again, this tie has nothing to do with any familial connection to the people of the Atlantic.

“It’s more of a cold-weather connection,” says Enns. “It’s cold and shitty in the Yukon. We stay inside. We play music and we drink a lot of alcohol. And that’s pretty much what they do in Newfoundland, so we kind of come to the same conclusion musically.”

It was this bond between band and bar that inspired the stompin’ fiddle-frenzied piss-up “Down at the Trap”—a fitting homage to the Robson Street pub, as it’s the most straight-up traditional East Coast drinking song on Get’er Done! .

Patrick’s violin is still prominent on the rest of the album. Lyrically, however, other tracks veer more toward the raunchy-comedy side of things. Example: “The Godfather”, a folked-up Mafioso tune that reminds listeners about the obvious dangers of sleeping with the boss’s daughter. Here, Enns riffs on the “Speak Softly, Love” melody as he dramatically warns, “Do do do do do do don’t shit where you eat/Da da da da da da that’s what they always say/Cause if you do, I’m warning you/You’ll be knee-deep in shit until your dying day!”

As well, there’s “Chumba Czardas”, which serves as a detailed introduction to each member of the band, ending with a nod to the group’s original drummer: “He may not go down in history but he’ll go down on your sister/Give it up for Mike Bell, he is the Prince Rupert double-fister, Mike.”

As the principal songwriter, Enns admits, “Our songs are less about substance and more about substance abuse.”

Speaking of which, alcohol consumption was basically the whole catalyst for starting the band back in 2001.

“It started with me and Paddy playing at the liquor store in Deep Cove in our first year of college,” recalls Enns. “We just moved from Whitehorse to Vancouver and we ended up in all the same classes in [Capilano] college and we wanted to make money to spend on liquor, so we played music about liquor in front of a liquor store.”

Consequently, the two thirsty students cleaned up.

“Oh yeah, we did really well,” he continues. “We were enabling everybody and I think the liquor store liked having us around, too. That was kind of the beginnings of our shtick.”

Now, eight years later, they have two other members (and some floaters) and two albums under their belts. The first was a decidedly more Irish-sounding recording called I May Be Wasted”¦ . And then there’s the latest CD, Get’er Done! . Spelled differently, the album’s title is a catch phrase that comedian Daniel Lawrence Whitney coined several years ago—unbeknownst to Enns.

“I didn’t even know who Larry the Cable Guy was,” says the easygoing singer-guitarist. “We called it Get’er Done! because I had a baby on the way—my wife and I did—and we wanted to use my son’s room as a recording studio, so we had to get it done before he was born because once he was born, we couldn’t use it anymore. So it was sort of a rush job, so we kept saying, ”˜Let’s just get ’er done.’ ”

Of course, knowing what he knows now, he’s changed his thoughts on the album title somewhat.

“It’s an insufferable cliché,” he says with a laugh, adding, “We might as well have called it Wazzup?”

The WhiskeyDicks play the Railway Club on Friday (September 25) as part of YukonFest.